The Pop-up Headlights Story

Little Car – 1936 was a great year to be alive, because the first car appeared with pop-up headlights – quite possibly the best thing to happen to headlights since someone thought to use a light bulb instead of a gas light. They appeared simultaneously on two cars – the Italian Alfa Romeo 8C, and the American Cord 810. You had to manually wind them up and down using a handle on the dashboard. At the time they were a handy way of streamlining the front of the car, producing an aerodynamic shape that mimicked racing cars of the day, although the streamlining advantage was negligible.